Brexit & the Fantasy of the Frictionless Border

保持爱尔兰边境无摩擦是英国/欧盟谈判代表为解决英国退欧复杂的主权问题而变出的魔术。帽子里的兔子是一个技术化的边界，将维持欧盟的自由流动逻辑和英国的独立性，并保留耶稣受难日协议。这将爱尔兰边境再现为一个危险的空间，只有高度技术化的解决方案才能“纠正”。通过探讨边界在专业工作场所和日常社区中的想象、实施和体验，本文揭示了技术化边界的生活世界如何干扰和抵制主权秩序。 首先，我概述了一个强大的幻想，即技术可以产生一个无摩擦的边界，能够客观有效地将“安全”的移动性与“危险”的移动性区分开来（Amoore，2016）。其次，我将这一承诺政治化，展示即使是最复杂的边界技术也需要重新定义主权秩序的基本规范/偏离逻辑。第三，我解构的承诺，揭示所谓的离散类别的“规范”和“偏差”的多重性，显示这些多重性总是威胁要推翻规范/偏差层次。第四，我通过批判性地考察技术化的爱尔兰边境的生命周期来激活这种解构：（a）边境之前：在技术设计中（边界是有待解决的问题空间）;（B）边界内：技术实施，由边界人员测试/使用/维护新装置;（c）在边界：在那里，住在附近并经常穿越的当地居民经历了所谓的“无摩擦”。我感兴趣的是，这种幻想在其整个生命周期中是如何被解开的：当技术设计师构建时，当边境特工实施时，当那些经常穿越它的人经历时。因为它是由一个规范偏离二元，技术化的边界再现了英国/欧盟主权的时代错误的想象，掩盖了固有的复杂性，混乱和偶然性（汉森和尼森鲍姆，2009年）。英国脱欧提供了一个现场场景，以批判性地探索这种幻想如何掩盖新的和更有害的规范/越轨二进制的复制。研究方法基于John Law（2004）和Weber（2016）的开创性见解，本论文发展了一个酷儿材料符号学的方法论框架，批判性地探索“复杂的社会技术现实”（Acuto & Curtis，2014）在关键的边界站点交织着人类/非人类行为者。网站/参与者之前的边界：构建英国脱欧边界通过采访英国边境部队的设计合作伙伴，埃森哲和智库，改革，我研究如何偏离设计到技术政策。其次，通过在IBMATA的参与观察，我评估主权机构和边境技术人员之间的关系网络。第三，我问规范偏差是如何设计到指纹扫描仪（集成生物识别）和生物识别软件（富士通英国）。第四，考虑到英国人工智能提案的重要性（Gov.uk，2018），我将在边境人工智能设计师Bronze Chain进行民族志研究。通过对边境人员的采访，我评估了他们在使用技术“筛选”风险流动时所经历的“职业不安”（Bigo，2002）。HMRC/爱尔兰税务代理如何操作技术来对“安全”的货物和人员进行分类？技术如何成功/失败，使英国/爱尔兰边境部队识别有问题的流动性？安加尔达·西奥查纳和PSNI管理着什么样的边境焦虑？为了了解用户体验技术化边境的方式，我将与商业、农业食品、跨境通勤者和艺术组织进行一系列民族志研究。

Keeping the Irish border frictionless is the magic trick conjured by UK/EU negotiators to resolve Brexit's complex sovereignty issues. The rabbit in the hat is a technologized border that will maintain EU free movement logics and UK independence, as well as preserving the Good Friday Agreement. This reproduces the Irish border as a dangerous space that only a highly technologized solution can 'correct'. By exploring how the border is imagined, implemented and experienced in professional workplaces and everyday communities, this thesis shows how the life-worlds of the technologized border always disturb and resist the sovereign order. First, I outline the powerful fantasy that technology can produce a frictionless border capable of objectively and efficiently sorting 'safe' mobilities from 'dangerous' ones (Amoore, 2016). Second, I politicize that promise, showing how even the most sophisticated border technology requires fundamental norm/deviant logics which reinscribe the sovereign order. Third, I deconstruct that promise by uncovering multiplicities within the supposedly discrete categories of 'norm' and 'deviant', showing how these multiplicities always threaten to overturn the norm/deviant hierarchy. Fourth, I activate that deconstruction empirically by critically examining the life-cycle of the technologized Irish border: (a) before the border: in technology design (borders as problematic spaces to be solved); (b) inside the border: technology implementation where new devices are tested/used/maintained by border agents; and (c) at the border: where supposed 'frictionlessness' is experienced by local populations who live beside and cross it regularly. I am interested in how that the fantasy is unravelled throughout its life-cycle: when constructed by technology designers, when implemented by border agents, and when experienced by those crossing it regularly. Because it is constituted by a norm-deviant binary, the technologized border reproduces an anachronistic imaginary of UK/EU sovereignty which masks inherent complexity, messiness and contingency (Hansen & Nissenbaum, 2009). Brexit offers a live scenario to critically explore how this fantasy masks the reproduction of new and more pernicious norm/deviant binaries. Research MethodsBuilding from the seminal insights of John Law (2004) and Weber (2016), this thesis develops a methodological framework of queer material-semiotics to critically explore the 'intricate socio-technical realities' (Acuto & Curtis, 2014) intertwining human/non-human actors at key border sites. Sites/Participants Before the Border: constructing the Brexit BorderThrough interviews with UK Border Force design partners, Accenture and thinktank, Reform, I examine how deviance is designed into technology policy. Second, through participant observation at IBMATA, I evaluate the relational networks between sovereign agencies and border technologists. Third, I ask how norm-deviance is designed into fingerprint scanners (Integrated Biometrics) and biometric software (Fujitsu UK). Fourth, given the significance of the UK's AI proposals (Gov.uk, 2018), I will conduct an ethnography at border AI designer SKU Chain. Through interviews with border agents, I evaluate the 'professional unease' (Bigo, 2002) they experience when using technologies to 'sift' risky mobilities. How do HMRC/Irish Revenue agents operationalise technologies to sort 'safe' goods and people? How does technology succeed/fail in enabling the UK/Irish Border Forces to identify problematic mobilities? What border anxieties are managed by An Garda Siochana and the PSNI? At the Border To understand the way users experience the technologized border, I will conduct a series of ethnographies, with business, agri-food, cross-border commuters and arts organisations.